Volume 5

Sword

Background

The development of the sword was not possible until ancient civilizations
discovered how to mine and work metal. Thus, the first swords were
probably made of the oldest worked metal, pure copper. The earliest copper
mines were in Egypt around 3700
B.C.
, and in Anatolia (in what is now Turkey) around the same time. By about
1900
B.C.
, copper working had spread across Europe, and presumably copper swords
were made during this era. Copper alloyed with tin produces bronze, and
this metal made stronger weapons than pure copper. The earliest bronze
swords were made by the Egyptians in about 2500
B.C.
They made blades by heating bronze ingots or by casting molten metal in
clay molds. Bronze swords were used throughout the ancient world, until
bronze was replaced by iron as the metal used to make weapons. The
Hittites knew how to smelt iron as early as 3000
B.C.
, but an efficient method of forming the iron into blades was not
discovered until somewhere around 1400
B.C.
The Hittites were the first to harden iron for blades by heating it with
carbon, hammering it into shape, and then quenching it in water. They kept
their methods secret for as long as they could, but gradually ironworking
spread across the ancient world. The Romans used iron swords with double
blades, a weapon for hand-to-hand fighting. A bigger sword, which could be
used to fight from horseback, came into vogue in Western Europe by the
third century. Both the Vikings and Saxons were renowned swordsmiths. They
used sophisticated ironworking techniques both in forming and decorating
their blades.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, the sword was the preferred weapon of
the knight in armor. The medieval sword was made of steel, and so sharp
and heavy that it could easily cut a man in half. The quality of the sword
depended to a great extent on the quality of the metal. Production of
swords was specialized in certain towns or areas where skilled ironworkers
had access to good metal and knew how to work it. From the sixth century,
the lower Rhine in Germany was a center of sword manufacturing, and later
swords were exported from Milan, Brescia, and Passau. Toledo, in Spain,
was renowned for its swords. A test of the Toledo sword's sharpness
was to throw a silk scarf into the air so that it floated down onto the
sword blade. The edge was so sharp that the silk would rend on impact.

Perhaps the strongest swords ever made were the weapons of the samurai in
Japan. As far back as the eighth century until the end of the feudal
period in the nineteenth century, Japanese smiths made blades of
exceptional hardness by welding strips of iron and steel together, then
folding the resulting sandwich over on itself and pounding it flat again.
This process was repeated from 12-28 times. Old blades were passed down in
families, and some were still in use in World War H. These swords were so
sharp and strong they could cut through a machine gun barrel.

During the sixteenth century, the sword evolved from a slashing weapon
into a more refined thrusting rapier. The rapier had a long, thin blade
sometimes reaching 6 ft (1.83 m) in length. When carried at the waist, the
longest of rapiers would inconveniently hit the street. By the end of the
century, the rapier became more lightweight
and its length was shortened to 3 ft (0.91 m). These adjustments gave
birth to swordplay and expertise.

With swordplay arose the art of the duel, a privilege primarily reserved
for the upper class. From 1600-1789, 40,000 aristocrats lost their lives
in duels. Since Germans preferred heavier swords, dueling was often
violent and resulted in injury and death. It was tolerated by the ruling
monarchs because of its rigid exclusion of the lower classes. In Germany,
dueling as an aristocratic sport unified the upper classes and
distinguished them from the masses. In France, dueling was more of an art
that did not necessarily have to end in injury or death. With the French
Revolution and the abolition of aristocracy, dueling was considered a
sport for all. The French used lighter weight epees—a sword with no
cutting edge that tapers to a point—and duels were usually fought
until the first blood was drawn. By the end of the nineteenth century,
Frenchmen averaged 400-500 duels per year with a nonexistent death rate.
The English banned dueling in 1844.

Swords declined in utility after the introduction of firearms, though they
persisted for a surprisingly long time. The British army was still
perfecting its sword design in the first decade of the twentieth century,
and its last change in design was in 1920. The cutlass, a wide sword used
in the British Navy, was not withdrawn from service until 1936. Swords
made today are for the most part ceremonial. They are still part of some
military dress uniforms. The only place where swords are actually still
employed as weapons seems to be Japan, where they are said to be a choice
murder weapon of underworld gangsters and far-right political assassins.

Fencing as Sport

With the refinement of sword design and the popularity of dueling came the
sport of fencing. During the eighteenth century Domenico Angelo, an
Italian that studied swordsmanship in Paris, moved to London and gained a
reputation as an expert duelist. Challenged by Ireland's master
swordsman Dr. Keys, Angelo quickly out-maneuvered Dr. Keys'
slashing techniques with his own fencing moves. His victory made Angelo
popular with the upper class as a teacher of dueling. He opened a school
and fencing as sport was established.

Modern fencing is done with blunted foils, epees, and sabers. A typical
uniform is equipped with a padded jacket, gauntlets, and wire-mesh
helmets. It is an official Olympic sport and it's popularity has
been sustained by the romantic swashbuckling of early Hollywood films and
recent epics like
Star Wars
and
Braveheart.

Raw Materials

The swords commonly in use in Europe in the Middle Ages were made of
steel. Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, and iron heated properly over
a charcoal fire becomes steel. But the theory behind the process was not
understood until the nineteenth century, and not many communities knew how
to make good steel. Iron smelters roasted ore in charcoal fires, and
produced wrought iron, cast iron and carbon steel, depending on the heat
and makeup of the ore. Cast iron contains more than 2.2% carbon. It is too
hard to work, and until the fourteenth century in Europe, it was
considered a waste product. Wrought iron contains less than 0.3% carbon.
It is a soft, workable metal most used for tools. But wrought iron swords
bent in use, and so were inferior to steel ones. Steel suitable for swords
contains from 0.3-2.2% carbon, and it is both soft and workable and can be
hardened by heating it to red hot and then quenching it in water.

Until the fourteenth century, when the mechanical bellows was invented and
iron production became more organized in Europe, production of steel was
haphazard, and primitive furnaces produced steel more by luck than design.
The invention of the bellows and the blast furnace in the fourteenth
century allowed smelters to heat ore to higher temperatures, producing
wrought iron that could be converted to steel. A common kind of steel
available in Medieval Europe was called blister steel. It was made from
thin rods of wrought iron. The iron rods were packed in charcoal dust and
set inside a tight iron box or small furnace. The iron was heated in the
furnace and blown with the bellows. When the iron reached white hot, it
began to absorb carbon from the charcoal, and turn to steel. Rods of small
diameter

Sword hilt assembly.

could be transformed into steel in about 24 hours, and bigger rods took
longer.

The finest steel was imported from India, called Wootz steel. Indian
metallurgy was renowned from the time of the Roman Empire, and blades made
in the Persian Empire and across the east were usually made from imported
Wootz. European Crusaders encountered Wootz steel in the superior weapons
of their eastern enemies. Crusading knights began bringing Wootz steel
back to Europe in the eleventh century, but the secret of making it
remained in India until the nineteenth century. Blades made from Wootz
showed a grainy pattern in the metal, formed by the fibrous layout of
crystals in the steel. The appearance has been compared to watered silk,
or damask fabric. The swordsmith usually emphasized the pattern by etching
the blade with acid. The most skilled smiths could make the crystalline
pattern appear in regular formations along the blade. This ancient art is
now lost. Eastern blades with patterned metal are called Damascus swords,
named after the city that was a major east-west trading point. To confuse
matters, some European swords are also called "Damascus." In
this case, European smiths tried to copy the eastern swords by marking
blades and inlaying the metal. But in true Damascus blades, the patterning
is inherent in the steel itself, and not imposed on it.

Indian metallurgists had several ways of preparing Wootz steel. In one
method, wrought iron plates were immersed in a crucible filled with molten
cast iron. Cast iron has a high carbon content, and when heated, the
carbon leached from the cast iron to the wrought plates. The resulting
metal was a mixture of soft iron and hard carbon steel, dispersed in
granules throughout the ingot. Another method was to crush iron ore and

The blade core is formed from two or more thin iron rods that have
been heated, forged, and twisted with a pair of tongs. Next, the
twisted rods are drawn out and a seam along the edge of the blade is
opened with a heated tool. A thin piece of steel that has been
roughened or "scarfed" along one edge, is then set into
the groove. The smith then heats the metal so that both the iron and
steel are molten and join. The blade is tempered—transformed
from soft, workable metal into a hard blade—by holding the
blade over a fire and then quenching the blade in a vat of oil or
brine. The blade is polished and decorated.

wash it repeatedly, in the panning process used by goldminers. This
refined ore was then dried and placed in a small clay crucible. The
smelter added charcoal and other plant matter, sealed the crucible, and
fired it in a charcoal fire for one to two days. Then, the sealed crucible
was cooled for another period of days. The clay was broken open, and the
ingot was then packed in clay mixed with iron filings. Next, the smelter
reheated this mixture to red heat. At this point, the metal was soft
enough to work, and could be successfully forged into weapons.

The Manufacturing
Process

Different metal workers made swords in many different ways, and most of
the techniques of swordmaking were never written down. In general,
specialized smiths made swords. The finishing of the blade, which often
involved elaborate inlay work, was done separately by a jeweler. Then the
blade was sometimes sent to a cutler, who did the final assembling of the
blade in the grip. What follows is a general process for a type of sword
made with an iron core and steel blades. A Roman sword was presumably made
this way, as were the swords of Toledo.

Forming the core

1 Some swords were made with a core of wrought iron, and fitted with
steel blades. The softer center made the weapon more flexible and
resilient. The core is formed from twisted rods of iron. The smith takes
two or more thin iron rods and heats them in the forge until they are
white-hot. Then, the smith fastens one end of the rods in a vice, and
twists them all together using a pair of tongs. One long narrow piece is
left to protrude from the center of the bundle. This forms the tang that
holds the sword to its hilt.

Drawing out

2 The twisted rods are then "drawn out"—a
smith's term for making the iron thinner. The metal is heated to
an orange-red, then placed on the anvil. The smith strikes the metal
with measured blows that stretch the body and make it long and
sword-shaped.

Fitting the blades

3 Next, the smith fixes the iron into a vice and opens a seam along the
edge with a heated tool. A thin piece of steel that has been roughened
or "scarfed" along one edge, is then set into the groove.
The smith then heats the metal so that both the iron and steel are
molten on the surface. This was evidently quite an art, as the metals
had different melting temperatures. The smith closes the seam by
hammering it deftly, and the molten metals join. For a two-edged sword,
the process is then repeated on the other side.

Packing the edge

4 Now, the smith heats the blade so it barely turns red. The smith often
held the blade in the shadow of a box or barrel, to see the color in the
dark. When the whole length of the blade is the right color, the smith
sets it on the anvil and strikes quick blows with a small hammer all
along the steel edges. This masses the steel fibers, and makes a
stronger weapon that keeps its sharpness longer.

Tempering

5 Now the blade is tempered—transformed from soft, workable metal
into a hard blade. The smith holds the blade over a fire that may be a
long fire built specially to fit swords. The difficulty is in getting an
even heat all along the length of the metal. When every part is glowing
an even color, the smith quenches the blade in a vat of oil or brine.
For this first quenching, the blade is placed in the vat with the blade
held flat, parallel to the liquid's surface. After it cools, the
smith cleans off the metal scale that collects on the blade's
surface. Then, the smith heats the sword again, in a slightly different
way. The smith heats a long iron bar to orange-red, and lays the sword
on it. When the sword heats to a blue or purple color, the smith lifts
it with tongs and quenches it again, this time edge down (perpendicular
to the first quenching).

Filing and grinding

6 The blade is next polished with a series of fine files. The edges are
ground sharp on a grindstone, a rotating wheel of textured stone.

Decorating

7 Many blades were elaborately decorated with inlaid patterns. Usually
the sword was sent to a jeweler for this step. The jeweler engraved a
pattern on the metal, and then often etched it out with acid.

Assembling

8 For the final step, the blade is attached to a hilt. The smith had
made the blade with a narrow piece called the tang protruding from the
end of the sword opposite the tip. The smith prepares a crosspiece with
a hole punched through the center. The simplest grip was usually made of
wood. It was carved as a solid piece, and then the smith, (or cutler, if
a specialist did the finishing) bored a hole through it from end to end.
A third piece is called the pommel. It is the rounded end of the grip.
It would also be carved in one piece, and drilled end to end. Then, the
smith heats the tang, and fits the pieces over it. The hot metal bores
out and fills the holes in the pieces, and effectively joins them. The
tang is long enough that a bit of it still protrudes through the pommel.
This is folded over and tacked down.

Byproducts/Waste

The production of iron and steel for swords required massive amounts of
charcoal. Charcoal is made from slowly charred wood. The amount of trees
needed to provide charcoal was so enormous that Queen Elizabeth I of
England had to put a limit on how much timber could be felled, fearing her
country would run out. An ironworks in colonial America that produced 15
tons of iron a week used up about four square miles of forest each year.
So iron production on a massive scale ran into the danger of
deforestation.

Iron itself was usually assiduously recycled. Old nails and horseshoes
made excellent sword cores, and smiths usually kept a scrap heap of broken
or useless tools and parts that could be melted down and re-used. An
unskilled smith, however, could waste steel if he burnt the narrow edge of
a blade. If heated too high, the steel became brittle and useless. And in
this condition, it was not recyclable.